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Former New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora knows a thing or two about how great Tom Brady is. He also knows what it’s like to beat Brady, a feeling he’s experienced twice in the Super Bowl.
That aside, Umenyiora realizes how special Brady’s feat of seven Super Bowl wins is. On his Twitter feed, he elaborated.
“The NFL is the most fair professional sports league in the world. Every team has the same access to all the players because of the draft and salary cap,” Umenyiora said. “No super teams, actually teams that try and build super teams usually lose. It’s not an individual sport, and all these factors make it almost impossible to win consistently in the NFL.
“So I stand firm in believing that what Tom Brady has done is almost inconceivable, and he is the best professional athlete we have seen.”
Osi then clarified his assessment, stating he is only using a recent sample of history.
“I only went back to 2010, but since then, the team with the most pro bowl players has not won the Super Bowl. You can’t buy an NFL championship, or assemble a bunch of star players to win one. Just doesn’t work like that in the NFL,” he said.
No, it doesn’t. Football isn’t like the other team sports. Sure, amassing good players is helpful but it is not the be-all, end-all. Not in football which is the ultimate team game. The Buccaneers may have seemed like an all-star team to may but in reality they were a perfect bunch of young players and veterans — and many of those veterans were picked up off the scrap heap.
Brady was considered done by many teams after last season. His phone did not ring off the hook like it probably should have. Rob Gronkowski was lured out of retirement. Leonard Fournette was cut by the Jaguars and no team wanted anything to do with Antonio Brown. Tampa general manager Jason Licht took a chance on all of them — and won.
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